Iron ore price, page-15158

In this afternoon's Australian. Just not FMG hit.
ASX clocks worst loss of 2019

The local market has started the week with red across all sectors, thanks to weakness across the Asia Pacific.

At the close of local trade, China’s Shanghai Composite was lower by 1.27 per cent while the Hang Seng had lost 2.91 per cent to its lowest levels since January.

The Asian sell-off came as the Chinese yuan hit its weakest levels against the US dollar since 2008, fuelling concerns that Beijing was allowing currency depreciation to counter the US tariff threat.

Both the onshore and offshore yuan pushed past the key 7 per dollar resistance, sparking commentary from the People’s Bank of China that the currency had been “affected by unilateralism and trade protectionism measures”.

Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China economist with Capital Economics, said the PBOC has “effectively weaponised the exchange rate” by linking the currency with the US trade war.

“Given that their goal is presumably to offset some of the impact from additional US tariffs, they are likely to allow the currency to weaken further, probably by 5 to 10 per cent over the coming quarters,” he said.

Local iron ore miners were hit as iron ore futures fell back below the $US100 per tonne mark.

BHP lost 3.61 per cent to $37.38, Rio Tinto slid by 3.46 per cent to $91.49 while Fortescue shares were hit by 7.2 per cent to 47.09.

Technology stocks were the hardest hit in today’s sell-off – the sector down 5.2 per cent at the close.